Gary Hale: Pot legalization is no longer a trend, it's policy

Good governance is about good stewardship. Government executives always should consider how best to use the government's vast assets, including personnel, money and materials. In this light, continued opposition by the Drug Enforcement Administration to the legalization of cannabis - marijuana - is not only a losing battle but a waste of taxpayer money, particularly when the president, Congress and an increasing number of state legislatures are responding to the will of the people by decriminalizing nonviolent marijuana use and possession. Our federal tax dollars would be better spent by responding to the current widespread increase of heroin use in ways that will prevent continued abuse, reduce harm to users and provide for greater public safety.

As a former DEA intelligence chief, I know that one of the tools policymakers in public safety and intelligence circles depend upon is predictive analysis, an over-the-horizon view of the landscape that enables them to allocate resources based on realistic threats. These analyses often involve the combination of hard numbers, such as dollars in the budget, and softer criteria that provide patterns and indicators needed to reach a strategic or policy decision. By using these same methods, an objective analyst can see a clearly emerging picture: Marijuana decriminalization and legalization have gone past being a trend and are settling in as federal policy, especially with costs outweighing the benefits of incarcerating so many otherwise nonviolent offenders.

Perhaps the most important indicator of public disinclination to pursue marijuana use as a crime was the decision by Colorado and Washington state to legalize "recreational" marijuana. Another was U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to stop prosecuting offenses related to medical marijuana in states that have legalized its medicinal use. In August 2013, Holder took a further step toward realigning federal drug enforcement policy when he acknowledged that the national incarceration rate was out of control, especially with regard to nonviolent offenders. The change is expected to cut many federal drug sentences by an average of nearly two years, thereby reducing the prisoner population and the costs associated with those incarcerations.

Under the terms of the Controlled Substances Act, the DEA, in consultation with the Congress and other agencies, assigns drugs to various "schedules" according to several criteria. Since the passage of the act in 1970, marijuana has been consigned to Schedule I, the most restrictive category, because it allegedly has "a high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." Drugs in the less restrictive Schedule II include cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, morphine and fentanyl, the latter drug being approximately 100 times stronger than morphine and exponentially more dangerous.

The DEA is fighting an uphill battle by enforcing marijuana laws in the face of a new era of understanding, education and public sentiment, all of which represent a complete U-turn from long-held beliefs regarding the substance. The agency in which I worked for 31 years, many of them at a high level, must accept that the American people simply do not wish to have our federal government continue to spend time, money and resources fighting marijuana possession and use, especially in light of convincing evidence that cannabis provides alternative medicinal choices for epileptics, veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, those suffering the pains of cancer and others.

Notwithstanding the enormous contributions the DEA has made to public safety since its inception in 1973, it is time for it to realign its strategic thinking and adjust its policies to adopt this new paradigm.

In April, Holder said that the Justice Department is disposed to work with Congress should it wish to reschedule marijuana into a less dangerous but still regulated category within the Controlled Substances Act. I believe rescheduling marijuana is the right road to take, given the lack of convincing evidence that it is the evil portrayed by a more conservative public of the 1960s and '70s, a label some refuse to let go even today. Rescheduling would not mean the government would give free rein to the growing marijuana industry, but it would mean the DEA is listening to the public and the Congress and making well-reasoned decisions. It is also in the best interests of the DEA's organizational and political survival. My predictive and objective analysis is that Congress eventually will remove the designation of marijuana as one of the most threatening of drugs, thereby redirecting federal counter-drug resources to focus on more clear and present dangers. Federal tax revenues generated by marijuana legalization could provide the DEA with a much-needed boost in funding to confront drug-related terrorism and other more pressing threats.